Facebook Android Update Includes Ability for Home Users to Dock Their Favorite Apps (AllFacebook)
Facebook released an update to its Android application Thursday, and the biggest change is a new feature for its Home Android overlay — a new favorites tray that will allow users to store and access shortcuts to their favorite Android apps. The docking feature is aimed at addressing one of users’ biggest issues with home — complaints that it was difficult to access their non-Facebook Android apps.

Facebook Android Update Includes Ability for Home Users to Dock Their Favorite Apps (AllFacebook) Facebook released an update to its Android application Thursday, and the biggest change is a new feature for its Home Android overlay — a new favorites tray that will allow users to store and access shortcuts to their favorite Android apps. The docking feature is aimed at addressing one of users’ biggest issues with home — complaints that it was difficult to access their non-Facebook Android apps. Mashable Facebook already has plans to add folders for grouping your apps to Home as well. In addition to the changes to Home, Facebook added the ability to send multiple photos in a single message, and the ability to change who can see something you’ve already shared to its traditional Android app Thursday. The New York Times In related news, on Thursday, the social network announced that it was going to simplify the process of buying ads significantly, starting with the first question posed to a buyer. Instead of presenting a range of ad choices, Facebook will instead ask what the goal of the ad is — building a brand image, for instance, or persuading customers to come into a store. Then it will suggest ad formats that it believes will be effective. AdAge While the “streamlining” was characterized as a work in progress, one thing that’s on the chopping block is “sponsored stories” as a standalone product. Introduced in 2011 and once the core of Facebook’s strategy to promote its ads product as uniquely social, sponsored stories contain a social layer and inform users if their friends have engaged with a brand on the platform (by liking or commenting on one of its posts, for example.) Reuters “What we realized is that even though every ad product is really good on its own, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It should really be simpler,” Fidji Simo, a Facebook product manager for ads, said at an event at the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Thursday. The changes will be rolled out over the coming weeks and months.

Audioboo Launches Tool for Playing Audio on Twitter (SocialTimes) Audio clips shared on Twitter through Audioboo can now be played directly within the timeline. Described as “Twitter for audio,” Audioboo has added Twitter media cards to its Web and mobile platform, the company announced on Thursday. Wired Audioboo’s app and site let users record and stream audio clips, and it’s popular with many large media organizations. This latest news means that — as with YouTube videos or Twitpic images — Audioboo links will be embedded directly within tweets, so there’s no need to leave to another site to listen to audio. The Drum Audioboo CEO Rob Proctor said: “Twitter and Audioboo have always been a great combination, this latest development just makes that integration smoother and faster. Just like TwitPic brought images into Twitter’s timeline, now Audioboo is adding sound – without breaking away from the Twitter experience to visit another site.”

NSA Has Backdoor Access to Internet Companies’ Databases (CNET) A top-secret surveillance program gives the National Security Agency surreptitious access to customer information held by Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Google, Facebook and other Internet companies, according to a pair of new reports. The program, code-named PRISM, reportedly allows NSA analysts to peruse exabytes of confidential user data held by Silicon Valley firms by typing in search terms.

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Obama Says He’ll Get 99 Percent of Schools Connected to Fast Internet (VentureBeat) President Obama made a visit to a school in Mooresville, N.C., Thursday and announced an ambitious plan to get 99 percent of American students connected to lightning fast Internet within five years. Obama said that American schools, where only 20 percent of students have access to high-speed Wi-Fi, is falling behind nations like South Korea, where he says 100 percent of students are wired.